(exciting music) – I think one if the most difficult things for entrepreneurs to do is every time you invent yourself, you have to let go of something. Where, example, I was a copywriter in my 20s and I had a decent career of this, making good income, very good income as a early 20, 20 something years old, and I had to switch and say, you know what? Maybe I want to do something else. And I basically let go of all my clients and I just did the next thing.

That is very, very hard. – Ooh. – Right? – It is hard. – When you have something that’s working, like when you have something that doesn’t work, it’s easy to let go. When you have something that’s working then you need to go to the next level, right? And then I did it and then every time I found that when I did that, my career goes to the next level and the next level and the next level and the next level. – Well, then that’s such a great point and a very valuable lesson, because you were again, willing to take the risk. You looked at the long game, ’cause it’s all about the long game. Instead of playing the short game, playing those games that you kept having, because one thing we can’t manufacture is time. So if you’re brain is occupied on what’s working, but not what could be, then where are you gonna have the time to do the other? – Like the way that my mind works, like say I have something that’s working, most people will be thinking, oh, this is good.

You know, let it just keep running. No, I’m thinking, what’s gonna put me out of business? That’s what goes through my mind. What’s gonna put me, and then I will think about how can I structure something so I put myself out of business first. So this thing will die and this new thing will be born. That’s how I’ve always done it. – And that’s so smart and too bad the networks didn’t have you working for them, because they weren’t thinking that way and that’s what happens and in business, this is something people have to really be aware of.

To be flexible, to look at the next thing, to really look at the trends, to figure it out for yourself. Here’s a great example and you know this, Blockchain technology. Just Blockchain in general, but if you look at the technology part is brilliant. And then if you’re an early adopter, oh, how valuable will that be for you. If you wait, you are gonna be left behind. – That’s correct and people don’t understand and they think oh yes, somehow they think it’s not gonna happen to me or it’s not gonna happen, like think of Blockbuster back then, I think they’re thinking, oh, it’s not gonna happen, like 20 years, 30 years, right? – Right.

– And when it happens it happens so fast. – It does. You know another great example if we went old school, would be Kodak. Kodak owned the landscape. I mean everywhere you, I even can visualize, remember the cameras, the throw away cameras that they had? – Yep, yeah. – And they had the technology too. They had developed the digital cards. So they could have run with it, but the same thing, they said nobody cares. This is what we specialize in. We own this lane and I think that’s something people have to be careful of. I like Jay Papasan’s book, “The One Thing”. What’s the one thing? But I think you can have multiple lanes and that sometimes you have to be careful, that you want them to intercept, but if just sometimes focus on the one thing and you don’t look forward and you’re not forward thinking and you’re looking at trends and you can get trapped into, I own this, this is my baby, this is my technology, this is my thought, it’s not gonna go away. We’re just gonna keep babying it and growing it, but what happens with the world we live in now when it’s obsolete? – And isn’t it true? I think in some way I think they fall in love with their products.

They fall in love with this is the widget that we sell versus fall in love with the customers where, what are their needs? If you think about all these, all these companies and the mistake that they make, oh, this is what we do. I don’t care what the consumers want, this is what we do. Where as, no, the consumers kinda want this. They don’t want to drive to the store.

They don’t want to wait two days for the movie. They want to watch it, they want to watch it now. It’s more convenient to do that, they will want that. And it’s the same idea. If they would have seen that. – Right, what problem do you solve? What’s the pain point if you’re not, in any business if you’re not doing it, you really have to be customer-centric. If you’re not thinking, “What do people want?” then you’re just looking in a mirror at yourself. – That’s right, that’s right. – And the mirror cracks (laughing). – Yeah, and we are not our own customers. – No. – We are not our own customers. Talk to us more about what’s in the book.

What else od you talk about in the book? – So in the book I also talk about my speaking career. How I launched that and I talk about the Wow. So how do you clearly, confidently, like I mentioned before, concisely describe who you are and the the Wow is… – Is there a formula, is there a… – Yeah, there’s a formula. One of the things that you do to find out the Wow is it’s perfect time for this, because you just mentioned it. What do people want? What do you have that they want? And what happens is, we’re in silo’s. So we have a card that describes what we do and we’re just, we’re a lawyer, we’re an entrepreneur, we’re a whatever we are, we’re a chef, but that doesn’t tell anybody anything about your background. Like you’ve made a thousand meatloaves 20 000 different ways.

Or whatever it might be. (laughing) So to find out the Wow, one of the things you do is ask all the people around you, what do you think I do? Including kids, including neighbors, including people that you’ve met. – How they see us. – Exactly. How do they see you? And tell them to tell it to you, to send you an email or to write it down or whatever it is, so that you can see and put all those words together and I challenge anyone to have the exact map of what you think you are versus all these people around you and you gotta do at least 20 people, and you’ll see that you’re not as clear as you think you are on what your unique selling proposition, if you want to use the proper word, your unique selling proposition is.

So what is that? What is that wow? What is the value given? Often it’s a number. You said it when you, Dan, when you introduced me. So 15, 16, 17 000 interviews you get, that’s a huge number and it’s a true number. I mean it could even be more than that, but it’s a big number and I mentioned 500 plus rejections before I got into “The Locker Room” and I could do sports. That’s another big number. People in business have lots of big numbers. What they’ve delivered. How much money their company has made of every quarter. What is it that your using as your measuring stick, often that’s what your Wow is. So a Wow is a what or a who. I would say for you maybe initially you were a what, but now you’re a who, because we talked about this off camera where you were saying now people are recognizing you. So you’re a, you could say you’re a celebrity. And I would say I’m sort of a celebrity in some cases and I wasn’t that way in the beginning. So it was more, I was a what. What I was doing.

– This is what I do. – This is what I do. And so there’s different, celebrities are who’s. Like the Lady Gaga, somebody like that, a president, whoever it is, but you might be a who as a who in your market. So you might be the rock star in Atlanta, Dallas. – The expert in this field. – Yes, and people do in your field know you, but you’re not that expert or you’re an expert, but you’re not as known outside. – Not as mainstream. – Yeah, not as mainstream. So it’s important to know that and know where you wanna go. If you wanna grow your authority or your celebrity, whatever you call it, then you need to work on that. You need to use social media, you need to use the different avenues to grow your visibility and I talk about that.

How do you become buzz worthy? How do people start to talk about you? How do you get more visibility? Because we have a world where the attention span is, eight, seven, some say seven, eight, we’ll split the difference. It’s less than 10 seconds for our initial attention span and then we have 50 000 to 70 000 thoughts in our mind all day long. – Every day. – So how do you break through and get people to recognize you, remember you, download your podcast, pay attention to your content, that kind of thing. – I think now even in my career, I can see why I have heavily invested my time, effort in social media, because what I see is now the more valuable currency is actually not dollars, it’s attention. Because you can always convert attention into revenue, into income into whatever you do, but when you have dollars, if you’re not getting attention as a company, you have a product, a service, you’re not getting attention, you’re not getting customers, you’re not getting sales, right? – Right.

– And I think, at least for me, my career shifted when I went from, this is my company, this is what I do versus this is who I am. When I shift that then my career, it just skyrocketed, right? And then what I do just, it’s all just part of me and I think most entrepreneurs, and that’s I think one piece of advice I’d give you, is I think most of them they work, spend way too much time working on the what and not spending enough time, working on the who.

– Absolutely, I completely agree. – ‘Cause what you do can change. What you offer today, maybe Kate, you’re offering speaking service, next year you want to offer other services. But their still buying you, right? – Right. – People buy people. Versus, oh, this is all I do. I only coach and consulting on this. Well, what if this thing change? Then what do you do? – I agree. A meeting, I think this is the best compliment, Dan, I ever got. I came off of a stage once and a meeting planner said to me, Simon Sinek is why you’re the Wow. Because the people in the audience didn’t understand they needed a Wow. That is was about them, but it was about what’s the Wow? Why do people care? And that Wow can change and you said it, I’m the queen of reinvention. That’s exactly what’s happened to me just like your journey and I realize that’s what it’s about.

And I can see that from postings, because what do people want from me in postings? And you can tell by looking at those measurements what people are looking at you for and I agree with you. If you capture that social media whether, whatever it is and by the way it could be LinkedIn, ’cause LinkedIn is powerful too, or Instagram or Twitter or your podcasts or YouTube or whatever it might be. But the dollars will follow that and whatever it is you do, whether it’s speaking, product or seminars, webinars, retreats, whatever you might have, a system… People will buy that because they trust you. They like you. – Correct and then now even companies, big old companies, organizations. They know now, that’s why they want to partner with influencers. Why they have to influence? ’cause influence is marketing right? What they know, yeah, you know, we could advertise, but why not go to someone that already has an audience that like and know and trust them and actually have them do a collaboration, do an endorsement, it’s a much more effective way to go. And then they can go into a lot of these niche market.

Just like the, you know, YouTube kid who makes like 22 million a year. – Oh yeah, I just saw him. – They toy reviewer, right? Like why? Because he’s got the audience that the company wants versus, well they can run ads on TV, but why not just go directly to the source? The kids are watching this channel, unboxing or reviewing toys, if they want to sell more toys, and there you go. – And it completely makes sense, because you said it. He’s got the audience, that’s where they’re gonna go and that’s where they’re gonna buy.

And you know I call it story selling too. So it’s story selling. What is it that you have that needs to be, whether it’s clients, maybe it’s the success you’ve had through incredible clients something they’ve done. Tell the story, we want the story now. More than even product placement is good and that works, but also selling it is really, really big and that’s why he’s successful. – It’s true, it’s true. It almost reminds me of the Dove video viral campaign. – Oh yeah, that was big. – Right, right, you remember? It’s not so much about, I mean if you think of the product. It’s soap, like it doesn’t… – It’s soap. – It’s not like, yeah, but it’s soap, it’s not like the most exciting thing in the world, but Dove understands the emotions, right? The beauty, the inner beauty, all of that and they take, and they take a stand, all right, they take a stand and plus the story.

– Right, it’s the story. – And I love how they tell a story through the customers. Not Dove our company, history, story, how we make the soap. It’s not about that. In fact you watch the video, if you watch that again on YouTube, it’s not about, Dove is like at the very end. – Right. – Right? But it’s about the story from the beginning. That’s the difficult part there. – Oh yeah, if you watch the Super Bowl for example, people are paying or companies are paying now it’s up to 5 million for 30 seconds and that, there’s incredible pressure. Why? Because it is about the story selling and the product is just sort of there in the background and the better they are and the better the ad agency or whoever it is that puts them together.